Protector
by WOWZAcoolBEANS
Summary: “As always, I was there to watch him.” Kamui loves his brother dearly, and would do anything to protect him from harm; the only hard thing to do is please him while he protects. Dedicated to my sister, Smeep.


**Title:** Protector

**Synopsis:** "As always, I was there to watch over him." Kamui loves his brother dearly, and would do anything to protect him from harm; the only hard thing to do is please him while he protects.

**Rating: **K+

**A/N**: Written while I should be studying for my finals! Yay for not wanting to continue re-reading the adventures of Holden Caulfield! Woo hoo! In all honesty, I have no idea where the inspiration for this came from. I expected to write something about Allen Walker and ended up writing about vampires from a completely different fandom. Sometimes life just works like that. This piece is dedicated to my loving sister Smeepalicious who is the Kamui to my Subaru. I love you sis, and I'm eagerly awaiting my birthday fic on Monday.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Tsubasa, because if I did, no one would have such a god awful name as 'Tsubasa'. I mean seriously, that's worse than Apple.

--

When Subaru sleeps, I watch. I don't know if he knows that I'm always there watching him because he is the only one that I cannot read the mind of, even if I tried. To me, Subaru's thoughts are a closed book, never to be read; the information inside never to be discovered. Not always a good thing, and not always a bad thing, it was still something that we shared only with one another.

This world that we were in was unfamiliar to me; having traveled for quite some time, they had been to many worlds, some of them repeated from time to time. This time, however, the urban landscape and the racket of vehicles during the nighttime were foreign. We had been in metropolitan areas before, but the penetrating bright lights of this specific world were worse than most than we had explored previously. Already having been here for two days, I was sick of this sort of place. I much preferred the much more rural worlds that we had been to where it was easier to see if someone was coming for us. Under my breath I whispered, "I dearly hope we do not have to stay here long."

Suddenly, I felt a hand on my knee. Apparently my words had stirred Subaru from his slumber. "Don't worry, Kamui. We won't be here long." My hand reached for his, and his smiled at me.

There was nothing more reassuring in the world, or in any world, than Subaru's smile. The soft way that his face looked and the kindness behind each of his actions. Even when he had given that man his blood, it was because of his kindness. Both his largest fault and greatest virtue, Subaru's kind face is what kept me traveling with him through all that time.

"Are you alright, Subaru? You usually don't wake up so easily." Subaru's hand was warm on mine; apparently I was cold and had not noticed. "Are you feeling ill?"

Subaru began to push himself to a sitting position; I opened my mouth to protest, but he beat me to the punch. "Don't say anything, Kamui. You're far to protective." From underneath my hand, Subaru's slipped out. I tried not to notice and miss it. "I'm feeling fine. What about you, Kamui?" The question took me by surprise. Instead of answering, I just stared at him for a moment. "Are you feeling alright?"

"What do you mean by that?" I asked. There was nothing for Subaru to be concerned about with me. As always, I was healthy. As always, I was strong. As always, I was there to watch over him. There was nothing about my actions that differed from what they usually were. There was absolutely no reason for Subaru to waste any of his precious breath asking if I were alright.

There was a sad sort of look in Subaru's eyes, and he looked down at the floor instead of me. For some reason, panic began to build in my chest. "You don't sleep, Kamui. Don't think that I don't notice it." The words struck me hard. Subconsciously I knew that it would never pass Subaru's knowledge that I wasn't sleeping. In the past week I had probably slept a collective amount of four hours. About that, however, I did not mind. If a bit of minimal sleep deprivation was the key to escaping that hunter, then I did not mind losing a few hours here and there. Lost in thought for a moment, I didn't notice that Subaru had moved closer to me. I was woken from my trance by his hand on my face. "Don't worry about me, Kamui. You don't need to take care of me quite so much. Think of yourself once-in-awhile."

I couldn't stop a small laugh from escaping my lips. As soon as it did sound, however, Subaru's hand was gone. "How can I not worry about you, Subaru? You're my companion; the one person actually worth caring about in this godforsaken life."

"Kamui-"

"No Subaru, don't tell me otherwise, I won't hear any of it." I was not usually a talkative person, and I was never someone with a great sense of humor. I was a vampire and I generally hated everything apart from my brother. If there was a God, then I hated him as well. There was only one thing worth living for, and that person was already with me. I would worry about him, undoubtedly, and I would do whatever I could to protect him. Trying to make my voice more gentle, I put a hand on Subaru's shoulder. "Go back to sleep." My voice was almost a whisper. "In the morning we'll find some sustenance."

I could tell that he was unwilling to listen, but he lay back down. "Go to sleep too, Kamui. No one is coming to get us. You don't have to be afraid to fall asleep." There was a tug at the sleeve of my suit, but I ignored it, choosing to stare out of the window of the vacant apartment that we had taken a hold of instead. Outside the world was running around in frantic circles. Apparently the patrons of this city did not sleep. There had been other worlds like this as well, but something about this city struck me as stranger than the others. There seemed to be no differing in activities from day to night here; they melded into each other in an endless recursion of noise. How irritating it was. There was another tug at my sleeve. "Kamui?" The voice from behind me was timid and sweet; just as it had always been.

Somewhat unwilling to let Subaru sound so hurt, I turned. "What is it?" The words were harsher than I had intended, but I could not help it; right now I just wanted to be left in peace, to make sure that no harm came to that boy while he slept.

"Kamui, go to sleep." I opened my mouth to respond with a negative answer, but Subaru kept talking. "You must promise me that tonight you'll go to sleep." There was a note of something like desperation crawling into his voice that didn't please me. "I'm worried about you Kamui."

I looked at him for a moment; his eyes were open wide and they were as sincere as ever. That was always something that I loved about him. My hand found its way to one of his hands, the one that was still attached to my sleeve. I took it in mine. "I will, Subaru. Go to sleep; I'll join you in a minute." Satisfied and smiling, it took Subaru only a few moments to find himself once again in the land of dreams.

I had always envied that about him; for me sleeping was always an ordeal. Usually it took me longer to fall asleep than the amount of time that my eyes were actually closed. As he slept I looked at him. He looked so like a child when his eyes were closed. A child in need of protection that only I could give. I didn't care what he said about not wanting me to worry about him; that was natural. He was my brother, and I loved him more than anything else that could ever exist. But, for the sake of him, I walked over to the other side of the bed that he was on and sat down. After a moment I eased myself down until I was on my back, staring at the ceiling.

Just for tonight, I would rest my worry and I would sleep. My conscious screamed at me, telling me that if I were to sleep then if something happened to Subaru it would be my fault, but I tried to silence it.

Subaru wanted me to do this, and so I would. My life, my existence, belonged to him, and if I could ease his worry just a bit, then I would.

Shutting my eyes, I blocked the noise of the city out of my head, and soon enough I was fast asleep.

--

_Fin_


End file.
